2011 Wks 12,13 and 15

Sunday 15th January 2012
at 09:24pm

Not a day goes by where I don’t think of my family, my career, my website and our Green Bay Packers. That said, I cannot believe how quickly the last 2 months of 2011 flew by. Sitting down only now, whilst I’m on vacation and I have the time to do so, I am surprised that my last entry, from Week 10 for goodness sake, seems like it was a year ago, not just a few weeks back.

I must say, the delay related largely to my wanting to post an update for every single week. A feat that proved virtually impossible as I attempted to juggle work heading into the Christmas period and all of the day-to-day responsibilities of being a spectacular husband, wonderful Dad and loyal assistant to Santa Claus himself. Ok, so I embellish just a little! (Charles Woodson photo credit: Todd Rosenberg/NFL. No Link.)

Again, without going into the play-by-play detail here’s how I saw the rest of the season, but for the last two weeks. I’ll get to those sepaerately. And because we’re simply too far behind now for anybody to actually care about weeks 11-15, I’m just going to call out my favorite parts to keep it all flowing nicely.

Week 12 vs. the Lions and 13 vs. the Giants

For all of the wonder of our undefeated season at this point, these two weeks were the standouts for me with regards to whether we’d go undefeated or not. Never did I think that Detroit actually had the chance to beat us; they’re simply too young and too ill-disciplined to handle a team as strong as ours so early into their rising success. That said, the Lions, like any team in our division always lift when they play against us. If there was one thing that had me slightly nervous, it was that outside of the Vikings and Bears, it was this team that’d try that little bit harder to destroy our potential record-equalling season. (Aaron Rodgers photo credit: Todd Rosenberg/NFL. No Link.)

As for the Giants, they scare me regardless of their form in the week prior. Since the NFC Championship game in 2008 the Giants are one of those teams that will forever worry me. And despite the fact that they can lay claim to being the most up and down this year, they still have a great quarterback, consistent coach and strong defensive line to compete with anybody on their day.

Getting through those two weeks without a loss, including Aaron’s game-winning drive in New York, really did have me thinking about a perfect season for the first time. (Greg Jennings/Jermichael Finley photo credit: AP Photo/Kathy Willens - Buy from the NFL Store.)

Week 15 vs. Kansas City

The one thing I remember most about this game was my hoping that we’d run the score up big on the Chiefs. We’d just belted Oakland by 30 points and there was no reason why we couldn’t do the same thing against these guys. Kansas City after all were deadset lock-ins for a losing season and we were only 3 wins away from a perfect one. What more did we need to know?

The funny thing about this game though was the fact that the Chiefs had a new quarterback and coach coming in after Todd Haley was unceremoniously fired and Tyler Palko was given a rest after all he attempted to do in taking over from Matt Cassell. 

What ensued was nothing short of unbelievable. And I mean it. For a good two days I copped endless ribbings from guys down here that have absolutely no clue about the game, but knew enough to know that the Packers had lost and that I’d be a good target for taking the mickey out of all of a sudden. (Leonard Pope photo credit: AP Photo. No name, no link to buy).

To this day I still can’t understand what happened in KC. Sure, I wish that Mike had’ve challenged the Leonard Pope fumble, and I wish Aaron had’ve been on his game more, but when you’re winning as often as we are, it’s hard to call anybody out for anything. Even if it might of cost us the game in the end.

It wasn’t just that we lost that had me feeling so down; only one team has had the great fortune of not losing a game in almost 50 years. It was that we lost to Kansas City. What worried me more though, was whether we’d take our medicine and get on with the season, or whether this game could have been the start of a slide that none of us wanted to go down. (Mike McCarthy Photo Credit: AP Photo/Ed Zurga. Buy from the NFL Store.)

The one solace I did have through this week though was the potential of now emulating the ‘07 Patriots and being proud of it. 18-1 when you lose on Super Bowl Sunday is heartbreaking. 18-1 when you lose in in Kansas City during week 15 is an awesome year that finishes spectacularly.

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